278 A Contribution to Malayan Ornithology. [No. 4, 



exception of a number of species quoted by B 1 y t h, H o r s- 

 field and Moore, and others, from Penang, very few birds 

 appear to have been received from the Wellesley Province, which 

 is geographically situated between Tenasserim and the well known 

 Malayan country about Malacca. 



The avifauna of the Burmese and Tenasserim Provinces has been 

 ably worked by B 1 y t h, with the assistance of Col. T i c k e 1 1, 

 Sir A. P h a y r e and many others. To the Malayan fauna about 

 Malacca Mr. B 1 y t h ' s labours have equally contributed very 

 largely ; his " Catalogue of the Birds in the Asiatic Society's 

 Museum" is a valuable mine of information, and it is indeed not 

 easy to hit upon a species which this most zealous naturalist had not 

 already placed on record as occurring in those regions. Almost every 

 one of the earlier volumes of our Journal bears testimony to this. 



Through several Dutch collectors, large numbers of Malacca birds 

 had gone to Europe many years before they reached Calcutta, and 

 in fact Malacca birds (generally stated to be from Singapore, because 

 shipped from that port), are among the most common in European 

 Museums. Many new species and interesting new genera have been 

 described by Mr. E y t o n, (P. Z. S., Lond., 1839 and Ann. and 

 Mag. 1845, vol. xvi), by Strickland, (Ann. and M. N. H., 

 1844, vol. xiii and 1847, vol. xix,) H a r 1 1 a u b, (Rev. Zool., 

 1842 and 1844), Lord Hay (Madras Jour. vol. xiii,) and by a few 

 others. 



The Malaccan fauna was known to be most closely allied to 

 that of Java and Sumatra, which has been so successfully 

 worked out by Horsfield and Sir Baffles, and after- 

 wards by Temminck in his PI. Col. It is comparatively 

 only within a recent period that ornithologists are attempting to 

 increase the number of species by the discovery of minutious charac- 

 ters between the insular and continental Malayan forms, but I do not 

 think that this attempt will be followed by very great success, as 

 far as the creation of new species is concerned, though the fact of 

 these differences really existing is, no doubt, of very great interest. 

 It cannot be questioned for one moment, that the most intimate rela- 

 tion exists between the avifauna of Sumatra, Java, the greatest 

 part of Borneo and the Malayan peninsula from Singapore to 



